Defiance - Xbox 360http://www.gameinformer.com/games/defiance/b/xbox360/atom.aspxCommunity Server2011-06-07T17:15:00ZDefiance: An MMO Co-op Shooter With Perks And Flaws/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2013/04/24/defiance-an-mmo-co-op-shooter-with-perks-and-flaws.aspx2013-04-24T17:11:00Z2013-04-24T17:11:00Z<p><a href="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview610.jpg"><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview610.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p>Trion has finally released its long-in-development MMO
shooter, Defiance, which coexists alongside the SyFy cable series of the same
name. Though it&#39;s not the first shooter we&#39;ve seen with a massively multiplayer
infrastructure, Defiance offers two things you can&#39;t find elsewhere: console
versions and lots of cooperative content. Those are two mighty big features for
a lot of players, and make up for a lot of Defiance&#39;s less thrilling features.</p>
<p><i>[Editor&#39;s Note: Game Informer does not assign traditional review scores to MMOs given their constantly updating and changing nature. This column examines the game with a critical eye, and takes the place of a standard review.]</i></p>
<p>Dropped into a post-apocalyptic San Francisco and its
environs, Defiance players are faced with a dizzying array of activities to
lend context to the endless murder parade of an action-packed shooter.
Main-line missions offer directed cutscenes with competently written and voiced
dialogue, though the story starts out terrible and never rises above the level
of average boilerplate adventure sci-fi. Minigames challenging the player to
kill waves of enemies with a certain weapon or race their vehicle of choice
through a series of checkpoints are fun diversions. The vast majority of the
game, however, consists of thinly veiled minor variations on defending an NPC
or attacking a group of entrenched enemies, sometimes with some clicking of
objects sprinkled in. Whichever flavor the current mission is, it always boils
down to killing a whole bunch of bad guys.</p>
<p>One of Defiance&#39;s biggest mistakes is in how long it takes
to reveal the full brilliance of its tight gunplay and wonderful weaponry to
new players. You can spend 15 hours shooting the same handful of mutant types
with the same boring basic weapons if you try to clear out all the sidequests,
and 14 hours of that is tediously boring. Do yourself a favor and power through
the story missions exclusively, at least until you make it to the second area
with its new enemies and better storylines.</p>
<p><a href="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview07.jpg"><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview07.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p>Once you make it there, Defiance&#39;s combat is beautiful. The
world is conveniently laid out as a series of interconnected battlegrounds,
each with its own opportunities for cover, high ground, killing fields, and
hiding spots. Enemies are exceptionally aware of the environment, and do a good
job of seeking cover from hostiles and flushing out or flanking enemies -
especially since the AI can&#39;t &quot;cheat&quot; by knowing which direction players are
going to come from, what weapons they have, or even how many of them there are
like in a traditional linear shooter. Combat responsiveness is top-notch on PC;
the Xbox 360 and to a lesser extent PlayStation 3 versions have had some
growing pains that Trion has steadily improved upon since launch. Network lag
artifacts like warping players or enemies, goofy hit detection, and jerky
movement have been conspicuously absent from nearly my entire time with
Defiance.</p>
<p>Defiance&#39;s best feature is its weapons. The variety within
each of the usual shooter categories is incredible. Shotguns, for example, come
in almost too many varieties: pump-action, semi-automatic combat, sawed-off,
grenade-launching, single high-damage slug firing, extra-wide horizontal
spread, and more. The same is true across pistols, SMGs, LMGs, rocket
launchers, grenade launchers, assault rifles, and alien-tech beam guns.
Combined with the various types and rarities of mods that you can fill the four
modification slots with, an astounding spread of choices awaits every player.
Randomly triggered effects like damage-over-time fires, slowing biological goo,
and armor-reducing radiation add yet another layer. My high point of Defiance
is the process of experimentation and tweaking that goes into creating a set of
loadouts that fit the way I like to play.</p>
<p>My first 20 or so hours with the game had me exclusively
using a bolt-action sniper rifle paired with a pump shotgun. The extreme
lethality of sniper-rifle headshots is hilarious against distant targets, and
the shotty&#39;s high burst damage demolished anything that dared approach. That
slowly evolved into replacing the shotgun with an SMG that is terrible at
hip-fire but exceptional when aimed, then using a scoped assault rifle instead
of the sniper, and kept on changing. I went through dozens of configurations as
I found new weapons, and I still change it up on a regular basis. Figuring out
a way to make the exotic weapons work is pure joy; the grenade launcher that
fires manually detonated sticky grenades that explode into more grenades repays
the investment with absurd damage output.</p>
<p><a href="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview10.jpg"><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview10.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p>Players have access to one of four special powers as well:
cloak, decoy, overcharge, or blur. Overcharge&#39;s damage boost and blur&#39;s
movement/melee increases are of questionable utility compared to the absurdity
of cloak and decoy&#39;s excellent instant panic button, but all serve their role
in tight spots. I don&#39;t love their impact on PvP - more on that shortly - but
they&#39;re fun in co-op, especially since the inconsistent mission design
regularly throws absurd odds at you.</p>
<p>The mad variety of weapons is a wonderful thing for
Defiance, because its other methods of persistent progression are lacking.
Perks can be unlocked and customized as you level up, but they&#39;re all of the
&quot;you take five percent less damage when below an enemy&quot; variety and are thus
easily overlooked. I honestly couldn&#39;t tell you if any of my perks materially affected
the outcome of a single fight I had in dozens of hours with the game.</p>
<p>Player-versus-player combat comes in two flavors, neither of
which I find compelling. Regular matches are typical deathmatch-style affairs
sadly dominated by cloaked players one-shotting whoever is waiting for their
cloak cooldown to be up with shotguns. Shadow War rounds attempt to bring in
some of the MMO flavor into balanced-team matches with elements like hostile
NPCs and larger maps, but the general PvP imbalances between powers and weapons
bring the experience down. PlanetSide 2 is a far superior PvP shooter MMO, and
dozens of traditional shooters offer better match-based gameplay.</p>
<p>Cooperative play, however, is seamless whether you&#39;re on a
story mission, sidequest, co-op instance, or engaging a massive dynamically
generated arkfall event with dozens of other players. The number and toughness
of enemies scale with local players, loot is distributed individually, and
everyone gets credit for any action by a nearby player, so you&#39;re never upset
to see a fellow human in the world. However, player concentrations are so low
for anything but arkfalls that I found myself soloing more often than not.</p>
<p><a href="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview09.jpg"><img style="max-width:610px;" border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/notreview/notreview09.jpg" alt="" /></a></p>
<p>More concerning than low player concentrations - heck,
sometimes I want to solo and there&#39;s always an arkfall or a co-op dungeon if
I&#39;m in the mood - are the frequent errors and bugs in mission scripting. I
often had to log out and back in to access my next mission, and several times
had to abandon and restart a quest or even wait for a server reboot to progress
thanks to a malfunctioning script. I expected better out of Trion based on the
company&#39;s excellent work on Rift and high level of MMO expertise.</p>
<p>I likewise expected better out of Defiance&#39;s interface. The
HUD is clean, which I appreciate, but hiding vital information like remaining
clip size and health/shield status in the corner of the screen is a mistake.
Outside of combat, navigating the menus for character management, inventory,
crafting, and social interactions is unforgivably terrible. The PC version
feels like an up-rezzed console interface that requires three times as many
clicks as it should, while the console versions have their own idiocies like
having to scroll through text windows to access critical top-level information
about weapons. It&#39;s all pretty with its artist-crafted sub-windows and slick
sci-fi veneer, but the functionality is atrocious.</p>
<p>I don&#39;t care much about Defiance&#39;s cable-TV ties, though the additional (and temporary) questlines that roll out with episodes of the (so
far mediocre) show are a fine way to do ongoing content. Neither do I care for
its PvP, or many of the ways it integrates MMO elements like social, inventory,
and crafting systems. I find myself forgetting and forgiving all of that when
I&#39;m blasting away at evil robots with a radioactive shotgun, recharging a
buddy&#39;s shield with an alien beam weapon that shoots chain lightning, or
setting entire groups on fire with an extended-mag flare pistol. As a co-op
game with an effectively infinite gear grind, occasionally amusing storylines,
and a sweet hot pink Mad Max dune buggy to tool around in, Defiance works
perfectly well.</p>
<p>Looking for more on Defiance? The&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2013/04/12/respec-radio-ep-40-defiance.aspx">episode of our MMO podcast that dives deep into the game</a>&nbsp;is a great place to start.</p>
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Defiance&#39;s $60 price of entry may seem steep, but its lack of a monthly subscription price is reassuring - especially since the cash shop currently doesn&#39;t sell any must-have items. The cosmetic items and boosts to XP gain and the like are expected and not concerning in the slightest. I would be upset about the ability to buy grab bags of items with real money in a different game, but Defiance&#39;s gear variance is more about variety than raw power - and I&#39;ve had no problems finding a ton of weapons and mods to experiment with through normal play.
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</table><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=2777497" width="1" height="1">GIAdamhttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIAdam/default.aspxFortune And Glory Await Ark Hunters In New Story Trailer/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2013/04/16/fortune-and-glory-await-ark-hunters-in-new-defiance-story-trailer.aspx2013-04-16T18:12:00Z2013-04-16T18:12:00Z<p><img border="0" src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/storytrailer/DefianceNarrative610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p>
<p>It&#39;s easy to mistake MMOs for a series of unrelated fetch quests, but the good ones have an interesting story to tell. <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/04/11/trion-worlds-nathan-richardson-talks-the-future-of-defiance-and-player-good-will--.aspx">Defiance</a> is an ambitious project, combining a new SyFy television series with Trion Worlds&#39; open-world, persistent shooter.</p>
<p>The story needs to be balanced and complete enough independently while still offering something for those engaged in both halves of the experience. In this latest trailer, Trion Worlds gives players a look at life as an ark hunter. Finding new technology, fighting hellbugs, and laying waste to the mutant menace are all in a day&#39;s work on the frontier.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Defiance is currently getting its <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2013/04/16/psa-defiance-patch-1010-out-360-players-should-wait.aspx">first major patch</a>, though not without a few hiccups. You can check out our <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/04/05/defiance-early-impressions.aspx">impressions</a> and listen in on the <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podcasts/archive/2013/04/12/respec-radio-ep-40-defiance.aspx">most recent episode of Respec Radio</a> for our take on the game.</p>
<p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=2748887" width="1" height="1">GIMikehttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIMike/default.aspxA Massively Multiplayer Sci-Fi Shooting Gallery/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2012/06/06/a-massively-multiplayer-sci-fi-shooting-gallery.aspx2012-06-07T04:21:00Z2012-06-07T04:21:00Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/e3handson610.jpg" border="0" style="max-width:610px;" alt="" /></p>
<p>
<p>Trion&rsquo;s Defiance, sister game to the upcoming SyFy cable show of the same name, has the MMO shooter thing working on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC.</p>
<p>I have no qualms remaining about whether Trion can pull off action-packed first-person shooting in a massively multiplayer context, with dynamic public events pushing players to cooperate with each other against a deadly alien menace. I&rsquo;ve played it, it works, and it&rsquo;s an action game through and through. I couldn&rsquo;t shake the feeling that I was waltzing through a shooting gallery, though, as the combat never reached the fever pitch that exceptional shooters boast.</p>
<p>Throughout the instanced co-op mission I played at E3 and its caverns filled with foes that manned turrets, bore shields, and fired rocket launchers, I had a fine time. The enemies presented little challenge, though, as their AI never made much use of cover or tactics more complicated than &ldquo;shoot at the players.&rdquo; This is a problem that could well be remedied by the time that Defiance launches later this year, and in fact it may already be &ndash; press demos are routinely tuned to be exceptionally easy. Still, what I saw has me slightly concerned.</p>
<p>I also blasted my way through a public event that had aliens raining from the sky across an entire open-world zone. After gunning down dozens of monsters around a few of their landing zones, we activated the boss battle for the event: a towering alien hive constantly spewing green death bolts and spawning more of the smaller enemies. Here again, there was nothing wrong with the action. I blew up enemies with grenades, used my sprint ability to evade danger, and shotgunned a whole lot of bad guys in the face. The diversity between the tough burrowing melee aliens, the small skittering spider-like ones, and the poison-spitting ones added some welcome variety to the combat.</p>
<p>Qualms aside, I love the idea of a co-op shooter in a persistent world that features dynamic, public events like what I&rsquo;ve already seen in Defiance. If Trion can crank up the dial on the action front, this could fill its own niche alongside the other MMO shooters creeping toward release &ndash; especially on console, where the only competition is CCP&rsquo;s unapologetically hardcore PS3 exclusive Dust 514.</p>
<p>Defiance comes out in April 2013. Make sure to check out the <a href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/defiance/b/pc/archive/2012/06/05/riding-vehicles-and-shooting-lasers.aspx">new screenshots and videos</a> released yesterday for this year&rsquo;s E3 as well.</p>
</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=1979927" width="1" height="1">GIAdamhttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIAdam/default.aspxRiding Vehicles And Shooting Lasers/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2012/06/05/riding-vehicles-and-shooting-lasers.aspx2012-06-05T22:50:00Z2012-06-05T22:50:00Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/Defiance%20610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>Check out gameplay and new screens of Trion&#39;s upcoming game. </p>
<p>From the developer that brought us the MMO Rift, Defiance is an upcoming multiplatform third-person shooter MMO pitting humans against an alien invasion. It is also tied to an upcoming television show of the same name.&nbsp; Defiance bills itself as the next step for &quot;transmedia entertainment&quot;. What this means is that how players perform in the game will have ramifications to how the show proceeds with its story. it is an interesting premise and we are eager to see how Trion&#39;s project works out.</p>
<p>Defiance is set to release April 2013. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer, gameplay footage, and new screens!</p>
<p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p>
<p>(Please visit the site to view this media)</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=1974906" width="1" height="1">Jack Gardnerhttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/Jack-Gardner/default.aspxSee The Future In Defiance Trailer/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2011/06/09/see-the-future-in-defiance-trailer.aspx2011-06-09T20:29:08Z2011-06-09T20:29:08Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/defiance610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /></p>
<p>Trion&#39;s upcoming shooter/MMO is playable on 360, PS3, and PC. Check out the teaser trailer within. <br /><br />Trion is trying a couple of innovate ideas in its upcoming game, Defiance. First, the game will have 360, PS3, and PC players together on the same servers, working together to conquer the game&#39;s challenges. The game also ties into an upcoming SyFy network TV show that will roll out along with the game. <br /><br />We&#39;ve got extensive impressions of the early demo for the game <a title="available here" href="http://www.gameinformer.com/games/defiance/b/ps3/archive/2011/06/07/multiplatform-shooter-mmo-announced.aspx">available here</a>. Or check out the very pretty (but very lacking in information) teaser trailer below.<br /><br />(Please visit the site to view this media)</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=985516" width="1" height="1">GIMillerhttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIMiller/default.aspxMultiplatform Shooter MMO Announced/games/defiance/b/xbox360/archive/2011/06/07/multiplatform-shooter-mmo-announced.aspx2011-06-07T22:15:00Z2011-06-07T22:15:00Z<p><img src="http://media1.gameinformer.com/imagefeed/featured/trion/defiance/e32011_610.jpg" style="max-width:610px;" border="0" alt="" /><br /><br />Trion Worlds made waves with its debut product, Rift. Following up on that MMORPG&#39;s success, the company is creating another massively multiplayer game at its internal San Diego studio -- but Defiance is anything but a traditional MMO. This multiplatform shooter that ties into an upcoming SyFy television show breaks nearly every mold you try to fit it into.<br /><br />Trion introduced the game with a live multiplatform demo that had two players here at E3 in Los Angeles, one each on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, playing with several PC players back home in San Diego. The sci-fi shooting is roughly identical on all three, with the only differences being graphical quality (the PC version has the highest capabilities, and the PS3 build at E3 looked noticeably superior to the 360 game), input method, and ancillary factors like achievements and trophy support. <br /><br />The first part of the demo had a half-dozen players working together on a bug hunt. The area we saw is a partially alien-terraformed San Francisco bay, and a variety of mutated and extraterrestrial creatures threaten anyone who ventures out in the wilds. Using many different weapons and secondary abilities like short-range teleports and energy leashes, the players cleared the bugs with ease, picking up several loot drops for their trouble.<br /><br />If I hadn&#39;t been told that this all takes place in a persistent server-hosted world, I would have guessed that this was a garden-variety cooperative console shooter. The action is entirely skill-driven; your shots go where your aiming reticle sends them and you run and dodge enemies like they&#39;re Brutes trying to gravity hammer your face off. Defiance has MMO-like loot, yes, and missions and towns and all the rest, but the gameplay is 100 percent action shooting.<br /><br />Later, the Trion employees demonstrating the game made their way to a decripit shantytown-looking place home to devious foes called 99ers: scavengers of alien technology so obsessed with their work that they implant themselves with their finds until their cyborg shells are barely human. Here, the group gets automatically assigned a mission to hack into sentry turrets and clear out the 99ers, which progresses over several stages and culminates with the enemies torn to shreds by their own defenses.<br /><br />This mission is very reminiscent of Rift&#39;s dynamically spawned public events. Entering the area prompts get a voice transmission from a mission-giving NPC requesting help against the 99ers, and groups can quickly and easily form up to tackle the challenge. Unlike Rift, however, Defiance employs WoW-like phasing technology to preserve players&#39; places in the story. If you&#39;ve completed the mission in the past and swing by the area again, you won&#39;t encounter the 99ers again -- but for another player who has yet to experience the quest, the cyborg assailants will be ready for killing.<br /><br />Finally, the team heads to a larger public event called Arkfall. This event has all players in the area working together to destroy a crash-landed alien incubation Ark before the chrysalis it is nurturing breaks and the fully powered alien warbeast inside emerges to wreak havoc on the Earth. The players beat the timer to blow up the arms of the Ark before that dire eventuality, but that&#39;s not the end of the event -- the warbeast breaks through its shattered chrysalis and challenges the good guys in its weakened (but still rather deadly) form, at which point the demo ends. <br /><br />Arkfall appears to be functionally nearly identical to Rift&#39;s rifts. You&#39;ve got public groups banding together to deal with what appears to be a dynamically spawned enemy invasion, multiple stages of the encounter progressing in sequence, and rewards at the end. I don&#39;t mean the Rift comparison to be a negative one; that game&#39;s dynamic events system is the best part of a very good MMORPG.<br /><br />Defiance ties into an upcoming, unannounced SyFy cable TV show. Since SyFy hasn&#39;t unveiled it yet, Trion isn&#39;t talking much about that side of the game. All we know is that the game&#39;s world and the show&#39;s universe will evolve together, where any big events in the show will be mirrored in the game. Characters from the show will also appear in Defiance, and Trion says that it&#39;s &quot;talking about&quot; having top players&#39; characters possibly being mentioned in the TV show.<br /><br />Defiance allows thousands of players on any of the three platforms to connect to a single server hosting a persistent open world. The gameplay is more Halo than World of Warcraft. It sports solid current-generation visuals, though nothing that compares with the Resistances or Battlefields of the world. Trion&#39;s challenge is to pull off its crazy three-platform cross-play and deliver solid gameplay. If that comes off, Defiance could be a bold step in a new gaming direction. Given the general excellence of Rift, I&#39;m liking Defiance&#39;s prospects.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div><img src="http://www.gameinformer.com/aggbug.aspx?PostID=978970" width="1" height="1">GIAdamhttp://www.gameinformer.com/members/GIAdam/default.aspx